


Right To The Edge

by Littlebiscuits



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Dubious Consent, Enemies to Lovers, Everything is Complicated, M/M, Rough Sex, Soulmates, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-01 05:36:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15136292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlebiscuits/pseuds/Littlebiscuits
Summary: It's not supposed to be easy, sometimes you and your soulmate have to work out your issues with each other first.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for queen_lagertha, I tried to get as close to the request as I could. But they wanted to be complicated and messy. Then it got much longer than I expected.

Rook knows that he could have had a better reaction to finding out him and Jacob Seed have exactly the same soulmark, in exactly the same place.

Even though it happens in the middle of a messy escape from the hotel, when he's in no real state to process exactly what it means.

Rook still could have taken a calm, measured approach to that fucking record-scratching bit of information. But he's never been very good at calm and measured, and their interactions so far, though they've been brief, have been both deeply unpleasant and psychologically scarring.

So as soon as he escapes, he sets the hotel on fire.

He's pretty sure that sends a message.

It takes Jacob exactly twelve hours to try and reach him via radio. Rook's pretty sure he spent at least half of that trying to unclench his teeth.

Jacob likes to project that calm exterior to the world, that readied stillness, all carefully controlled motion and considered monologues. But Rook's pretty sure that underneath it all Jacob is still someone who wants to put his hands around a man's throat and watch him choke on his own blood. And he's clearly unhappy about Rook managing to get away, right after realising what he was.

Though in this case 'reaching him' is really just Rook listening to him making grim, unsettling pronouncements through anything that will broadcast, about how hard it will be to get past his men and leave the mountains. How Rook should come back, so they can talk about what this _means_.

Eventually Rook picks up just to make him stop scaring the surrounding civilians.

"Did you enjoy that moment of petty revenge?" Jacob asks, in what would almost be a conversational tone, if he didn't sound like he was an inch away from smashing the radio he's speaking from into a thousand pieces. 

"I can see how you might not have approved of the direct approach?" Rook says, and he's so angry every word feels bitten out of him. "But I'm just making a point about your hospitality." 

He can see the way the peggies are sliding through the grass in front of him, in a slow but inevitable sweep towards his hiding place. They've been searching for him for hours, and they're everywhere, it's like Jacob sent every man he has after him. But this is the closest they've managed to get. Rook's no expert but he thinks they might just be in perfect formation. Though they are a little close together.

He can work with that.

"Has that been your plan all along then, Jacob? Find the person that's supposed to love you no matter what. Tie them to a chair and then break them down, drug them up, make them obedient, make them _compliant_." Of all the ways Rook has ever thought about meeting his soulmate. He'd never imagined he'd be tied up in a room while said soulmate forced him into a fucking rat maze of quickfire assassination, while rewarding him like a good fucking dog.

It's left him understandably angry.

"I didn't _know_ ," Jacob's voice is one long snarl of denial through the radio. As if he finds the whole idea obscene. "I had stopped looking. It's been so long, I had assumed you were dead. That I wasn't meant to find you." The grate of bitterness at the end makes that feel more honest than Jacob probably means it to.

Rook had still been looking, he'd still had hope - and now he's rifling in his backpack for deadly weapons.

"What, so you'll break everyone else's toys, but not your own? That says a lot of things about the kind of man you are."

Rook finds a bottle of alcohol he'd snagged from an abandoned house a few miles back, drags it out. He'd been fully intending to drink it, but needs must. Judging by the alcohol content there's a good chance it would have made him at least forty percent flammable anyway. So it's probably for the best.

"Come back," Jacob demands, and his voice sounds like it's being dragged across the floor. "I need to explain. I won't hurt you." 

Rook can't help but snort laughter at the radio, because that was the most threatening attempt at being non-threatening that he's ever heard.

"I would have expected a man like you to be one of those fucked-up people who try and carve the mark off your skin or something. That considers it a weakness to be expunged with all the others. Needing another person to make yourself truly happy. Surely strong people like you could force themselves to be happy through sheer fucking willpower or something." 

Rook uncaps the bottle and quietly starts stuffing a strip of his shirt in the top of it.

"No sane man would core away a source of strength," Jacob says thickly, like he's met plenty of those men and judged them for it. "Soulmates are chosen for you for a reason. They're made for you. They're your foundation when the world tries to tear you down. Someone you'd bleed and die for." 

Rook stays where he is, fingers squeezing around the bottle until it squeaks. He thinks about what the universe saw in Jacob Seed that it thought Rook needed, which parts of them balance each other. Because from where he's standing it looks like someone is punishing him for something. Here's a damaged, volatile monster tearing men apart looking for obedience, it's what you deserve, Rook.

"And here we fucking are," he says quietly. "You've made me bleed enough for you already. It's my turn now."

Rook sinks to a crouch, watches the row of peggies slowly draw closer, keeps an eye on the idling truck behind them.

"So I guess I don't have to worry about you judging me for the fact that I'm about to Molotov a whole bunch of your men."

 

~

 

Rook gets back to the meeting place they'd chosen smelling like booze, with one charred boot and a streak of blood up one cheek. He figures there's no point trying to hide it, it'll just come out later, and then people will judge him for not spilling straight away. He doesn't usually care what people think of him, but this feels more like an insult than usual.

He dumps the still smoking backpack he'd salvaged from their vehicle on the table, watches three bottles of beer jostle where they sit, watches one of them tip and fall through reaching hands, spilling foam everywhere

"So, it turns out that Jacob Seed is apparently my soulmate," he says flatly. With only half as much anger as he feels.

No one seems to know what to say to that, for a long, awkward silence. Hurk eventually breaks it by swearing, three times, with slowly increasing degrees of sympathy

Nick just pushes all of the beer in his direction, like he thinks he might need it. Rook falls into a chair, and sets about testing that theory.

"How the fuck did that happen?" Jess wonders. 

"Jacob fucking Seed," Sharky mutters, then winces, visibly. "I shouldn't have pictured that. I should _not_ have pictured that."

"It's not the first time soulmates have been on opposite sides of a war," Grace points out, though her face is grim like she understands that doesn't help at all. "People who're good at killing tend to understand each other like other people never will."

"And what's that supposed to tell me, that we deserve each other?" Rook asks. That doesn't seem in any way fair.

Grace's expression tells him she hadn't meant that, and he knows it.

"I don't think anyone _deserves_ Jacob Seed," Nick decides.

"The marks never take into account that being a person is messy," Jess says quietly. "Relating to other people is hard, and people can be shitty, even when God tells you, 'hey, that's the one, don't fuck it up.' Like you're supposed to stay the same person your whole life or something. People don't work like that, and so you come back from a war, or find religion, or some fucking awful personal trauma happens to you and suddenly 'it's too fucking hard,' and 'you're not who you used to be,' and 'I don't know how to deal with this.' People are fucking awful."

Everyone's quiet for a long minute, because they all know that Jess got a lot more in there than she wanted to share.

She shrugs, like she noticed and has decided not to care. 

Sharky opens another beer and nudges Rook with it.

"I think what she's saying, is that something in his life clearly fucked him up, and maybe the version of him you were supposed to understand and connect with and all that shit, maybe that version is long gone. And now he's just like...I don't know, a shell of what you were supposed to love. But the universe never gets the memo about all that. So it looks like - like you're being punished or something if your soulmate goes crazy or turns out to be fucking asshole."

"Yeah, but that's not always true, because even shitty people get soulmates, that's how it works." 

It doesn't really surprise Rook that Nick is going to bat for the whole concept. He's already found his soulmate and married her, and they are stupidly perfect for each other. 

Sharky shrugs, as if to say that he doesn't make the rules.

"But what the hell is a good match when you're, like, a serial killer anyway?" Jess asks. "If you're just deeply broken as a human being."

"Another serial killer?" Hurk guesses.

"But it's not just a good match is it?" Nick points out. "It's supposed to be a _perfect_ match. It's like the universe saying 'you'll never be this happy with anyone else.'"

There's an odd moment of silence, as if the table is contemplating Jacob Seed's ability to make anyone happy.

"It's like that actor, from the cop show, I can't remember his damn name. The one whose soulmate turned out to be in prison with like, three life sentences." Nick winces. "I mean, not everyone gets the happy ending, that's just real life?"

"And dude, if this gets really messy, it wouldn't be the first time someone's had to put down the person they should have spent their whole life with either," Sharky says, though he's pulling a face like he hadn't really thought about what he was going to say, until he actually said it. 

"Sure, most of them eat a bullet afterwards," Hurk adds.

"Not fucking helping," Grace tells him.

 

~

 

It's easy to keep going once he's started, to keep wrecking every piece of Eden's Gate property he can find in the mountains. And, as satisfying as that is, as easy as it would be to pretend, Rook knows it's not really Jacob that he's angry at. Jacob is as much of a victim as him, to the fucking whims of God, or the universe, or however this thing works. Only Jacob doesn't seem to care. Because of course the man is a fucking traditionalist, or he's trying to be one in the face of the madness his brother's created. Because how else do you cope with a fucking prophecy of the apocalypse, than by doubling down on anything that gives you hope.

Rook wants him to hate this. Rook wants Jacob to hate this as much as he does. He wants Jacob to send men to bleed him out and put him down, like he's a problem to be removed, rather than an answer that won't come to him, or that he's wondering how to drag back kicking and screaming. 

"I see you've left subtlety behind." Jacob doesn't sound impressed by the display Rook has created, his voice is all tightly controlled displeasure through the radio. Which is a shame, because Rook was hoping for something a lot more obviously pissed off. It would be a lot easier if both of them were pushing against this. 

Rook picks his radio up off the top of the magazines that are stacked haphazardly beside him on the roof. He doesn't know why they're on the roof. Maybe someone brought them all up here to do some last minute, end-of-the-world reading. It makes for something to do, while Rook watches one of Jacob's guard stations burn.

"I thought about subtlety?" Rook tells him. "I thought about carefully planning out a way to get inside, to sneak past your guards, maybe snag incriminating information for the resistance, leaving some sort of threatening and yet cryptic message for you. But that kind of expertly planned out shit is really not my strong suit." 

Rook can hear Jacob breathing through the radio, like he's trying to find words that encompass all the many things he's feeling right now. Knowing Jacob they're all very aggressive and menacing. But Rook thinks he's earned it, because if you threaten your soulmate with violence and brainwashing, this is what it gets you, you fucking _asshole_.

"So I just blew it up with a rocket launcher instead." 

"This path of destruction you're on is accomplishing nothing," Jacob says quietly. Rook doesn't think there's any sort of tragic backstory or military analogy that works for this, so he's probably just winging it. Also, it's blatantly untrue that this is accomplishing nothing, because Rook's feeling pretty good about it right now.

"I feel like I'm making your day at least ten percent more difficult, which I'm going to consider a win."

"This need to lash out at me is unnecessary, you already have my attention. If you want to settle this, if you want to _punish_ me, you know where I am."

Yes, he's in a fucking fortress, guarded by men that are loyal to him, either through drugs, religion or brainwashing. Rook's pretty sure that getting in and out of there would be a miracle. As for seeing Jacob face to face again right now. Rook's not really itching for that either. Whether he's genuinely willing to let Rook take a piece of him or not. Because Jacob seems like the sort of man that would think that makes them even. An eye for an eye, only over and over, until there were no pieces left.

"I'm not coming to you, Jacob. I'm not stupid." There is no trust here, the curving words dragged across the bend of his shoulder don't change that, they can't erase everything Jacob has already done.

"You'll have to come back to me eventually," Jacob says simply. "You'll have to face this eventually. There's only so far you can run, and you know you're supposed to be here, that you're supposed to be mine."

As if Rook is something that the world _owes_ him.

"Yeah, well, I guess that's just one more thing that you've fucked up then, isn't it?"

Rook tosses the radio off the roof.

 

~

 

Rook is almost getting used to the slow, rumbling cadence of Jacob's voice, always demanding he pick up the radio and acknowledge him. Sometimes Rook doesn't, just to listen to the confident assurances turn into a frustrated ramble, about how Rook needs to listen to him, needs to understand what Jacob can give him. Until Jacob clearly gets angry with himself and goes radio silent for half a day. Because Rook has to get his satisfaction where he can find it lately.

"You can't avoid talking to me forever," Jacob tells him, where the radio is balanced on the half-rotted stump of a tree.

Rook glares at it. Because he's busy painting a barrel and stuffing it full of dubiously flammable items, and he doesn't really have time for this right now. But he still leans over and hits the button with a clean thumb.

"You're pushing fifty and everyone in the county wants you dead, Jacob, I might not have to avoid you for long."

There's no reply, so Rook takes the opportunity to awkwardly ease the barrel onto its side, secure the tarp down over the top, so the stuff inside can't fly out too early.

Then he lights it on fire

He's never seen this done in real life, he's only ever seen it done in the movies. He's not a hundred percent sure if it's actually possible. But it always looks good, a dramatic statement that really says 'I hate you and everything you've built.' Assuming it works. If it doesn't work...well if it doesn't work there'll just be a flaming barrel against a tree somewhere in the woods, and no one will ever know except him.

"I'm trying something here," he tells Jacob. "On one of your supply depots. It's going to be very impressive if it comes off."

"Share it with me," Jacob says simply, soft like he hadn't expected Rook to say anything else, and wants to know how to make him keep talking. But that still sounds far too much like a demand for Rook to agree, even if he wanted to spoil the surprise.

"Now where would be the fun in that?" he says.

He kicks the flaming barrel down the hill.

It rolls slowly at first, and Rook is certain this is going to be a sad and very disappointing display of anger that ends in vague embarrassment for him and bewilderment for everyone else. But then it picks up speed, hits a rock and bounces hard, setting a few bushes on fire and spraying burning debris everywhere. It doesn't take long before it's crashing downhill at speed, crushing everything in its path. Rook is genuinely surprised at how destructive it promises to be at this pace. He sees the moment that the peggies spot it, seem briefly torn between shooting it, or abandoning their post. They decide on a little of both.

And then it's too late, because the barrel crashes into their supplies. The resulting wall of flame, explosions and shouting peggies is everything Rook could have hoped for and more.

"I hope you didn't have anything you were too attached to in there," he tells the radio.

There's a crackle on the frequency, and Rook gets the impression that Jacob is asking someone what the fuck he's doing, demanding to know where Rook is and what he's done.

Rook retrieves his rifle, from where he balanced it against a tree, starts down the hill before he loses the element of surprise.

It's true, that there might be a part of him that suspects Hope County is teaching him to deal with his problems in an unhealthy way, in a violent and destructive way that would probably be an insane response anywhere else. That this is not the person he ever thought he would be. But Rook is good at it, good enough that people are relying on him to get things done, any way he can.

And this is the only way that seems to work with the Seeds. Be the unstoppable force to meet the immovable objects.

 

~

 

Jacob's continuing quest to get him to come to him, like it's fucking inevitable or something, seems to have lost its angry edges. Which annoys Rook because he's been working so hard to keep Jacob angry, to keep this thing between them messy with spite. But it's as if Jacob has accepted that threats and aggression will only be met in kind, that all they're doing that way is just sharpening themselves against each other. 

Jacob's still pulling, but now it's quiet, patient. As if Jacob has stopped treating him like an enemy combatant to be captured, and is now thinking of him as some sort of trophy, to be carefully hunted and caught.

Rook doesn't know if he has a monologue all picked out, or if he assumes that if they spend enough time together Rook will give up and let him win - like he hasn't been watching the entire county slowly explode and fall to pieces in a vague path ahead of Rook, like a collage of his inability to deal with this particularly well. This would be much easier if Jacob was all seething madness, rather than reasonable observations and vaguely parental chiding.

Of course, this does bring up the possibility that Jacob will have set traps for him. And isn't that a pleasant fucking thought. As if Rook wasn't paranoid enough in the mountains already.

But there are no traps, not that Rook finds, though Jacob's soft, encouraging, gently sniping radio calls get more frequent, and there aren't that many things Rook can make explode in one day, especially not that are in range of wherever Jacob happens to be, so he can see them happening. He knows that Jacob can feel his frustration, can see where Rook is fraying at the edges, and that almost feels like losing. 

Rook's starting to suspect that the lack of obvious destruction is giving Jacob hope. Which makes him feel like he should probably stop talking to him.

Though Jacob always seems to know when Rook is traipsing through the woods, when he has no other distractions to fall back on. 

He's been in Hope County too long to think that was a coincidence, though he hasn't seen any cameras, just the loudspeakers and the radio towers and the occasional plane which Rook knows well enough to avoid by now. He's pretty sure the Seeds have followers among the townsfolk. Rook doesn't want to call them sleeper agents, but there doesn't seem to be another good way to describe them, that's exactly what they are.

Or maybe it's the wolves. Maybe Jacob is sending the goddamn wolves to follow him and report back. He's genuinely disturbed by how seriously his brain seems to take that sudden, random thought. Weirder things have happened here. Granted most of them have been down to the Bliss, but he doesn't want to rule anything out.

"Is there a good reason that I'm losing men along the river? I don't remember there being a single good reason for you to be there." Jacob sounds more curious than annoyed, like Rook is an errant soldier who's late to report in, rather than the man trying to break his mini empire piece by piece.

"You stopped sending people after me," Rook tells him, setting his back against a tree so he can talk without distractions. "They've been forcing me to make the effort."

Jacob makes a noise into the radio that might be laughter, it's brief and it rolls out slowly, as if Jacob begrudges giving it.

"Admittedly, not much of one," Rook tells him. "You might want to think about reining in the conditioning. Your men seem to have lost the ability to make imaginative decisions. I'm pretty sure that's not what you wanted. I mean disobedience can be trained out of a man, but stupidity - stupidity is forever." 

"And you've been enjoying yourself, at my expense, as usual," Jacob's voice sounds strangely warm, as if Rook has done something unexpected, something he approves of. "I suppose anyone who thinks you would be an easy catch needs to learn the consequences. I should thank you."

Rook scowls at the radio, at the insinuation that Jacob is using him to cut away his territory's own weaknesses.

"I'm not doing anything for you," Rook says. "Not again." He's not going to let Jacob use him again.

"Keep throwing yourself against that idea if you must, you'll tire yourself out eventually. And I'll still be here. I'll be here waiting for you."

Rook is starting to suspect Jacob is not wrong about that.

"Will there be slides of angry wolves?" he asks. Because that seems to be a theme, and he's too fucking bored and irritable to resist the urge to talk to another voice. "So many goddamn wolves, Jacob? Do you know there are people in this county who think you're actually a werewolf? They genuinely believe that. Though, I'll be honest, I think that would explain so much about you."

"It's a full moon in a week, come and find out," Jacob says dryly

"Well now I'm horribly fucking curious," Rook mutters, mostly to himself.

"The wolf is a symbol," Jacob tells him, like he thinks Rook genuinely wants to know, and it pleases him. "One that people understand, one of fear but also one of power, a purity of purpose, independent, decisive, no complications, no quests for revenge." 

Rook grunts at that. Because he'd forgotten to take his dog out once, when he was a kid distracted by stupid kid stuff, and when he got home later one of his shoes was full of vomit. He figures that dogs are about half as smart as wolves, and they absolutely know about revenge. It's less complicated than the human version, sure, but it's still revenge.

Cats too, but then cats are fucking assholes. they've been assholes for thousands of years, man had nothing to do with that.

"The wolf is a symbol of strength," Jacob finishes, when it's been too long for Rook to have an opinion.

"The wolf _pack_ is the strength," Rook points out, because it annoys him that Jacob keeps forgetting that, especially when it's so obvious, when Jacob is already in one himself, though it's something of a funhouse mirrors version, where the head is as crazy as an entire bag of snakes. But that's how it's supposed to work, the family unit, working together to hold territory, to chase off predators.

If you're not in a pack then you're a predator on your own. No one comes to save you then. If you fuck up, you die.

"They're a cohesive unit, with a leader who everyone trusts and follows without question. But that assumes the rest of the group is trusted to pull their weight. You've surrounded yourself with broken soldiers and brainwashed subordinates. That's not exactly a testament to your leadership skills."

"A man works with the tools he has, and when those tools are not fit for the purpose, when they're old and dull, then you _sharpen_ them. Or you go looking for better tools. And sometimes better tools are given to you."

Rook gets the impression Jacob thinks he's just paid him a compliment. It makes him wonder if the man has ever cared about any actual human beings that he wasn't related to. 

"You're broken too, Jacob," Rook says, even though he thinks that Jacob already knows. He doesn't seem like a man willing to lie to himself. "You give a good show, you look the part, you play it really well. But you're cracked all the way down the middle."

There's no answer from the other end for a long time, not even the angry squeezing of plastic.

"And what about you?" Jacob asks at last.

"What about me?"

"You came here all new, all wrapped up tight in your deputy skin, I remember you, I saw you. When you showed up here it was probably your first real challenge, wasn't it? And look at you now, look at what you've done, what you've _become_. You found something you're good at didn't you, something it feels like you were always meant to do. And it's so easy it scares you sometimes. Are you in control of your own need to break things? Or do you need someone to make you stop?" 

Rook turns the radio over and over in his hand. All the things he wants to say to that feel like giving away something he doesn't want Jacob to touch.

That feels too much like the truth.

 

~

 

There's no radio in Rook's bag right now, since the last one's at the bottom of the river somewhere, thanks to a clumsy peggie who managed to knock the both of them in the water. He hasn't managed to replace it yet, and the woods aren't exactly helpful at providing right now. He's found three spare guns, two grenades and six bottle of beer, but no radios. The people of this county have strange priorities.

Jacob has taken to broadcasting pointed, aggressive monologues about trust, and loyalty, and inevitability, as if he thinks Rook is ignoring him on purpose again.

Boomer grumbles at them, like he knows how much it bothers him.

"You're letting him get to you," Grace says quietly. She's perched next to him on a long stretch of fence, eating one of the snack bars they'd liberated out of a trashed vending machine. 

Rook sighs in answer, because she's only telling him something he already knows. Saying it out loud doesn't make him feel any better about it.

"Jacob Seed has done this before," she reminds him. "Dragged men down with words, made them doubt themselves, made them go to him. But it's different with you. He wants you, for everything you represent. He can't let you get away, it would be a failure, a weakness to lose you. I don't think he could let that happen."

Grace isn't looking at him, like she doesn't really want to have this conversation but can't help herself, thinks that Rook needs to hear it. Rook knows she's worried about him, about what Jacob will do to him, or about what Jacob will make him do - as if there's a difference.

"What am I supposed to do, ignore him?" He gestures at the loudspeaker they can both see from where they're sitting. 

"I don't know," she says honestly, like she understands how difficult that's going to be. "Get the job done, don't let him distract you."

Boomer pushes in under Rook's dangling hand, he always seems to know when Rook needs to get his hands on something. He pets him absently, dragging his fur back and forth until he slowly slumps into Rook's leg.

"You think I'm going to let him?" Rook says. "You think I am letting him?"

Grace blows out a breath.

"My first instinct is to say no, because I know you're smart enough to realise that Jacob Seed is just a lifetime of bad road. But he's your fucking soulmate, and I've seen that make people stupid before. I've seen it unravel men until they'd give anything to go back and make different choices. Because there's a reason, there's always a reason, no matter what it looks like."

Rook can't help laughing at what Grace has suggested, whether she realises it or not.

"So you think I should what? Get it out of my system instead?"

Grace winces.

"No," she says, but then she frowns and sighs again. "No, I'm pretty sure that would just make everything worse. That man is a possessive fucker, and he's already pretty focused on you. But, I mean, if it's either that or risk it becoming - on letting yourself become someone you wouldn't respect any more. I know that never making that decision, never trying something, has eaten away at people too. Sometimes more than making it, and then letting it blow up in their face."

Rook is fairly certain this whole thing has already blown up in his face, if he's being honest, he's not sure what worse would look like at this point.

"But then after you decide - shit, if you can't kill him. If you don't want to be the one that kills him. You might have to accept that someone else is going to do it."

She looks at him then, and Rook knows that she would, if the opportunity presented itself, she'd do it.

"And you're going to have to let them," she says slowly.

Rook stares at the tree and nods, insides clenched up tight in what feels more like the thick weight of grief rather than anger. Because he knows, he's always known, he knows exactly what has to happen. But after it's all said and done, he doesn't get another one. This is it, this was it for him, and it was something fucking impossible that was never going to be.

 

~

 

"I understand why you're angry," Jacob's voice is quiet in the dark, as if he thinks Rook might be asleep. As if he doesn't need to be heard he just needs to say his piece.

It's late, far too late for anyone else to be up. But Rook's been staring at the cracks in the ceiling for a long time now, and he's not sure Jacob ever sleeps.

"I understand that you expected the world to give you something different," Jacob continues. "Something younger, something less demanding, something more appealing." There's a break where Jacob breathes and bites down on something he doesn't say. Speech less measured and more honest than Rook has heard it before. "But we're given what we need, what will make us strong, what will make us whole. Shoring up the parts of ourselves that are damaged, or broken, or weak. Even if we can't see that at first, even if we fight against the choices that have been made for us, choose to reject them. Everything we have been through had a purpose, everywhere we have been has brought us to this moment in time, given us the skills we'll need, made us the people we are."

There's a long silence, and Rook doesn't think he's going to speak again.

"I am prepared for anything, for _everything_ that may become necessary," Jacob offers at last. "There is a place for you, whether you want it or not, whether you fight it or accept it. It will always be here, for you. And anything that you need from me I will get for you, I will give to you."

Rook reaches out, lifts the radio off of the low cabinet next to the bed.

"Can you get your family to stop turning the county into a fucking hellhole?" he says. "Because that's about the only thing that would give me peace right now."

"Would it?" Jacob asks. "Would it give you peace? To have this all end, to go back to your desk in some stuffy room that smells like sweat and garbage. To spend your life giving speeding tickets, and finding lost children and doing paperwork, and feeling all your fire and potential and purpose slowly rot away. That's not who you are."

"You've met me three times, you've had me tied to a chair and dumped in a cell, and you're the one who's going to tell me who I am?" Rook says thickly. As if Jacob has the right to try and judge him, to decide for him what he's supposed to be.

"I know what you're not," Jacob's voice is closer, harder, where he's leaning in to whichever radio he's speaking from. "I know what I could make you, if you let me. If you just let me show you."

"If you want me so badly, come out of your fucking castle and get me," Rook tells him.


	2. Chapter 2

The wind has picked up, and Rook doesn't feel like climbing any towers. He's at the old ranger station, a cheerful picture of a wolverine is staring at him from one of the posters on the board. Rook's pretty sure that whoever drew that has never met a wolverine in their life. Because they are not cheerful, they are moderately sized balls of spite, aggression and murderous instinct, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to your face.

He's already checked the perimeter three times, but he's heard more trucks than usual, they drive by, slow down but don't stop, and that's suspicious enough that he thinks he should probably leave. But this is a good position, a good place to defend (if there was more than just him to defend it,) a good place to head off in any direction. He's tired of walking, and he already smells so badly of smoke that it won't wash out.

Breakfast moves into lunchtime, and Rook's radio is silent. The whole mountain is quiet, which isn't normally a good sign any more. It usually means Jacob is preparing for something, some push into territory that Rook has clawed back from him. It leaves him tense and unhappy, watching the trees, watching the sky, wishing he'd taken more time to listen when Jess offered to show him how to make traps.

"A man should be careful about holes in his defences."

Rook goes to pick up the radio - and finds Jacob in the flesh instead. 

He's stood by the trees to the left of the road that leads in, gun held carefully, not pointed at Rook, but not held down either. He looks windswept, shine of sweat at his hairline, like he's been walking for a while, like he walked all the way here. Jacob is solid and still, all restrained motion. But he's not quite as tall as Rook remembers, maybe that's because he was tied to a chair the last time he saw him. Every one of the Seeds seem to have their own flavour of stillness, but somehow they all look like barely restrained violence. Jacob's is the calmest though, as if he has time to decide what form that violence will take.

"Are you going to shoot me?" Rook asks him, because he feels like he should be sure. 

"You're the one who demanded my attention this time," Jacob points out. Which Rook guesses is true enough, though he hadn't expected Jacob to track him down and actually show up in person. He sometimes forgets how good Jacob is at finding him, voice following him through the mountains like he's always watching. But seeing him on his own, in the wild, no one here but them, feels strangely personal. Something Rook doesn't quite feel ready for.

Even in the sunlight, brows drawn down, Jacob's eyes are pointed and focused on him. That shade of blue that all the Seeds seem to share, it's disarming, it wants to make you forget how dangerous they are.

Jacob takes two steps forward, sets his gun down, out of Rook's reach, but not out of his own. Rook has his own guns if he needs them. Though he doesn't think killing each other is an option for either of them any more. No matter how much of him wants to fight, no matter how much Jacob proves that he deserves it. Rook doesn't want to be the sort of man who can kill his soulmate. That feels like a choice there's no way back from.

Jacob surveys his choice of base, gives a grunt that seems to approve.

"Not bad, a little difficult with just one man, but workable. You have a good eye."

Rook's doesn't feel like mentioning the fact that last week he'd picked an old store as a safe spot, just for the free ice cream. He thinks Jacob already has enough proof that he doesn't always make the smart choices. In his defence, he's been meeting less resistance lately. The peggies have been less enthusiastic to catch him since the world made it personal.

"What do you want, Jacob?"

Jacob tilts his head, looks frustrated in the light, as if he's annoyed that Rook doesn't know that by now, when he's made it so very aggressively obvious. 

"I know you want to fight this," he says. "But some things you can't fight. You don't think you're going to be satisfied until you've burned through that anger, until you've left marks in me, to punish me for something neither of us can change. It won't help."

It's different hearing that in person rather than over a radio. Jacob's low, grating voice seems closer, more honest, almost sympathetic.

"You're the one who wants it to mean something," Rook says roughly. Who thinks it has to mean something, when people choose to say no all the time. Choose to pick their own future. "You're the one who won't stop pushing, who won't leave it alone."

"It does mean something," Jacob insists, close to angry, like he knows what Rook is thinking. "Whether you like it or not. I've been told I can be persistent, in so many different ways, some of them less than kind. But to see what I could accomplish with you, to see you become something truly formidable, that alone is worth the destruction."

"I'm not killing your men to prove a _point_ ," Rook tells him.

"Aren't you?" Jacob counters. "Because that's what it looks like, you proving that you can take things from me, that you can break the things I have built. Proving that you are strong enough to _challenge_ me. You expect me to watch you do that and not react? To not wonder exactly what you're trying to tell me. You're still in my territory, in case you haven't noticed. You could have chosen to leave -"

Rook hits Jacob in the face with the radio, which does not survive the impact.

He's genuinely surprised that Jacob didn't see that coming. The man staggers back, spitting blood, though he doesn't go down. And it's not half as satisfying as Rook was hoping it would be.

There's a long smile that holds no amusement, the drag of tongue across Jacob's teeth.

"You're determined to see this through, aren't you?" he says, like he never expected anything else. And that sounds more like the Jacob that Rook remembers. The man who demanded perfection and violence, demanded he keep up the pace, use what was given, kill who he was told.

Rook's next movement is with the shovel leant against the side of the ranger station, Jacob grabs it on the swing and slams it back into his chest, hard enough to knock the air out of him.

"Anger makes you sloppy," Jacob says fiercely, voice threaded with disappointed that Rook isn't listening to him. But he's still not fighting, his posture is all defence. "It makes you weak and you don't even see it."

Rook knows it's a losing battle to take Jacob on in a fair fight, but part of him still needs this, he can't help himself, he makes the bad choices. He shoulder charges him, and even though Jacob braces, even though Jacob is all solid weight, Rook knows they're both going down. Jacob snarls a curse when he hits the ground, grabs for his arm and pins it to the floor. Rook reacts to that by grabbing his collar and twisting the whole thing into a choke - until the material rips under the force of it.

Jacob catches him by the throat and slams him into the ground, making his skull rock and then throb. He looks frustrated and furious, reining in something darker that almost looks hungry, and this is probably the most honest Jacob has been with him for weeks. The most real Jacob has ever been. 

Rook digs his fingers into Jacob's bicep, gets them prised out by Jacob's other hand, and then Jacob pins him to the ground, shirt half torn, mouth snarling, teeth blood red, and he's fucking _majestic_. Rook has never actually been this close to him when not out of his mind, and he hates himself a little for being so impressed. For seeing so much of Jacob all at once, where he's been torn at and burnt and broken. But he's still here, still whole, hard and unforgiving, like he's cauterized everything that could bleed.

"You think I'm a wild dog that can't be trusted. You think I lack control. And yet you're the one who's desperately trying to set your own world aflame. You have no purpose, you have no direction, you have no one telling you to stop. You are adrift in a storm of violence and destruction, and you're _drowning_ in it. I know because I've done the same thing. I have been where you are. You want to know what burning everything around you costs. You're fucking looking at it."

Rook doesn't think Jacob gets to judge him for his choices. Because if he'd been anyone else, Jacob would have been grinding his face into the dirt already.

Rook pushes against his hold -

"Stay down," Jacob says, anger and frustration melting together, like he doesn't know how to deal with someone he's not allowed to break. Obedience has never been one of Rook's talents, he throws that demand back in Jacob's face, knees him in the gut instead. Which does fucking nothing, like Jacob has spent a lifetime taking blows off of angrier men than him. Rook can't get enough reach to elbow him in the face.

"I'm not yours to order around," he says viciously. "I never chose you, I never wanted you. I don't owe you anything."

This thing, this fucking thing -

"You can pretend this isn't real," Jacob growls down at him. "But I am going to save you from yourself, and if you want to make me stop, you're going to have to kill me." There's a grate in that, as if Jacob still doesn't know if he's going to try. Or what he's going to do when Rook does, and it's the first hint that this thing is fucking Jacob up just as much as him.

Jacob is too close, Rook can smell him, can feel the strength of him in the grip of his hands, all solid muscle and threat. The thundering presence of him curved over Rook like he wants to _force_ him into obedience. 

And Rook's first instinct is to tear into that - but he comes to a confusing realisation. As much as Jacob keeps insisting that Rook is his, it works the same way for him too. Jacob belongs to Rook too. The solid, broken mess of him, everything he is, everything he's done. Jacob Seed is Rook's to dig his fingers in, Rook's to roll in the dirt, Rook's to slam an elbow into the sternum of. His to lean into, breathe against, catch and hold and bite into, and kiss like he's fucking drowning.

His.

Fucking His.

If the world is going to give him nothing else. If he doesn't _deserve_ anything else. He's going to take this, God damn it.

Jacob leans down and holds him, pins him there with all his bad choices and kisses him back, with a mouth that tastes like tin and desperation. As if all his anger was just waiting for this, for Rook to give him this. There's no pause between kisses, it's all demand, like Jacob needs this and he refuses to stop.

God this is a mistake, this is a mistake. But Rook needs to get this out of him. He needs to slam his hands against this until it stops moving, until they can both say they did and it didn't work, so they can move on.

Go back to the way things were.

Learn how to hurt each other again.

Jacob is shoving big hands into the back of his jeans, belt protesting, until Jacob just moves a hand to aggressively rip it open, and the buckle sags like it loses the protest permanently.

Rook bites his way into Jacob's mouth, makes the kiss messy, doesn't resist when Jacob drags his head back so he can get deeper.

He loses his pants in one dragging pull, Jacob loses half his collar and a handful of hair he probably couldn't afford to lose.

Too fast, Jacob's hands on the bare skin of his thighs, sliding up and gripping, parting them like he's _allowed_. And then Jacob's crushing him to the ground, wedged between them, thick fingers shoving into his own mouth - which looks fucking obscene and Rook loses all his air watching it happen.

He knows where this is going, and he can't quite work out how to make it stop, or decide if he wants it to stop. If he wants this. If he should let Jacob do this, when he's denied him everything else.

He lifts a hand, wraps it around Jacob's tags and clenches his fingers tight, and all the air punches out of Jacob like Rook has given permission.

And then it's too late, because Jacob has two fingers inside him, a shifting ache of discomfort, wrist moving obscenely between his thighs. Rook draws in a breath and hisses it out, anger a twisty, writhing thing that wants so much more than a fistfight now. Jacob's swearing, biting out the words, still angry but Rook thinks it's at himself now. As if he thinks he's fucking this up, but doesn't know how to stop. Doesn't want to stop. 

They're both doing a fine job of that. But Rook's feels a hell of a lot more self-destructive.

Jacob's nudging in between his sprawled open thighs, spitting into his free hand and pulling at the button of his pants with the other, so hard that Rook swears the whole thing rips. He draws himself free - and Rook can see the red, blood-hot weight of his cock, can feel the stab of confused, eager greed it wakes in him, before it's angled down, and Rook's hips are tilted up.

Fuck.

It's a slow, grinding push of angry, stretching pressure.

Rook draws his thigh up, breath snarling up in his throat when Jacob leans down on his hand and pushes into him. Nature has been kind to the man, and it's a bruising shove of weight that the sensible part of Rook wants to stop, so he can get air. But Jacob looks ruined, teeth clenched together, torn shirt half off his shoulder, a scatter of damage and flexing muscle all out of control. His hair has half fallen in his face, dark with sweat, sharp where it drags to a point. Jacob is not a man you go looking for if you want beautiful, if you want kind. But if you want a man who'll get the job done, no matter the cost. If you want a man to march into hell with you, if you want to burn a county to the ground - Jacob is the man you give your sins to.

Rook puts his hands on him, fingers dug into the rough pattern of scar tissue.

He shouldn't be doing this, _shouldn't_ , this is a fuck-up of epic proportions. This is a surrender, this is an admission that there's something here, something tangled up in the lust. Like all his fighting has been for nothing. But he's angry, he's angry and he _wants_ this. All the adrenaline in his body clawing for this, for Jacob inside him, this messy punishment for both of them.

Rook's free hand slides down, grips at Jacob's falling waistband and pulls. 

Jacob gives him what he wants with a snarl. He pushes in, all the way in, trying to find somewhere to put his knee, to brace himself and push. One hand is still pinning Rook's forearm to the floor, the other hot and almost too tight on his bare waist, jolting him back into every push. Rook's hissing through his teeth, because it's still half stinging ache, and half uncomfortable fullness. But he can feel the shivery-hot edges, pleasure knifing in, pushed into focus by Jacob's weight on him, moving in him, desperately greedily. The way Jacob grunts helpless desire when Rook clenches around him and angrily chokes out his name. 

Jacob leans in, falls towards him, and Rook pulls him down. Jacob's mouth is open immediately, shoved down over his, too rough, breathing harsh, panting breaths into him. Hurried and greedy like he thinks Rook is going to make him stop. 

The rhythm between them is messy, broken.

Everything hurts.

Jacob.

Fucking Jacob.

He's all force and need, and Rook doesn't think he knows what he's doing either. And Rook, who's never wanted anything like this, never wanted as much as this, has his fingers biting hard into Jacob's waist and shoulder, where the other man can take it, can take everything Rook throws at him. He feels like he's going to fall into pieces.

Rook's own body _betrays_ him, takes two more shuddering thrusts before he's tightening around Jacob, fisting a hand in the back of his shirt and trying to hold on to something. His mouth is half open, breath rasping in and shaking out on a groan. And Jacob fucks him through it, words grating out, possessive, demanding, fucking obscene, before he slams to a halt and comes, body curling into Rook's, like he wants to leave everything inside him, expression wounded and open. 

Rook should hate this.

He should hate it.

But he's encouraging it, gasping out words that make Jacob grind in, hard and tight, and breathe something shaken, Rook's fingers still tangled up in his clothes and his skin. Until he has no excuses, until there's just silence and Jacob's hand in his hair, his head against the curve of Rook's, too close to meaning something. Jacob's mouth against his, open and wet, like that's something they can do.

Too much.

Rook pushes Jacob off of him, out of him, ignoring the drag of unpleasant misery that inflicts on himself. The wet mess that Jacob left him with.

Jacob draws back carefully, like he thinks Rook might stab him in the back and run. He doesn't try and fix any of his clothes, and he should look ridiculous like that, all torn material and dishevelled hair, cock wetly exposed above his pants, but he doesn't. He's an appealing curve of solid shoulders and hard lines. Though he's breathing like Rook made him run for it.

It doesn't take long to fall from the shivery reckless warmth of satisfaction to the cold realisation of what he let Jacob do, what he encouraged him to do. Rook can't even tell himself he hadn't wanted exactly the same thing, that he hadn't started it, or enjoyed it. He also knows this can't just be a messy thing that he forgets, that he forgives.

"Is this the part where you try and haul me back with you, chain my ankle to a post?" Rook asks quietly, because he's tired and he's hurt, and that still seems like a possibility.

"You'd chew off your own fucking leg," Jacob says breathlessly, stiff and unhappy. Which Rook thinks means he isn't going to try, though he clearly hates it. Jacob fucking hates it. Which is something like a comfort, after everything Rook has done. 

Jacob curls a hand round his wrist, it's heavy and hot, fingers flexing like they want to drawn him back in. To see if Rook will let Jacob touch him again. If that's something he wants.

"I didn't know," he says simply. "No one told me you were - that you could have been mine. I wouldn't have treated you like all the rest. I wouldn't have tested you. I would have come to you another way."

Rook isn't entirely sure that he believes him, thinks Jacob would have always wondered whether Rook would break. He pulls away, slow enough that Jacob's fingers curl and catch, before they let him go.

"Everyone is someone's," Rook says simply. "Everyone you've ground into the dirt, stripped down to obedience and fear, belonged to someone."

"Then I guess the list of people looking to even the score is a long one," Jacob says simply.

Rook pulls himself awkwardly off of the floor, everything fucking hurts, his jeans aren't going to stay up with no belt, and he feels vaguely disgusting.

"I didn't choose this," Rook tells him. Because he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing.

But Jacob doesn't stop him from leaving.

 

~

 

If nothing else Rook's moment of madness gives him nine days of peace.

Before he fucks it up again.

Rook doesn't know how much blood he's lost, but he feels floaty and too wet, where he's half sitting and half lying against the too-hard length of a fallen tree. The torn-off sleeve of his shirt, that he's pressing to the join of shoulder and neck, is sticky red. 

There's a heavy, hot weight still half across his lap, its grey-white fur slick red. Knife jutting from its throat. There are two others that he put down somewhere to the left of him, a fourth that fled, snarling into the woods. Two months putting down peggies across the county and he's going to be done in by a pack of four fucking wolves, eyes all full of madness and spite.

This is ironic somehow, in some ironic way. He's going to die ironically, and he has no one to tell.

He heaves the dead wolf off of him, regrets the amount of energy he uses up to do it.

"This is irony," he tells the radio, which he's painting red, blood seeping into the grooves, spattering it in flecks. "I'm going to die ironically, and it's all your fault." 

He doesn't know why he's radioing Jacob, and not anyone else, anyone else he trusts to help him, to get here and stop him bleeding like some sort of messed-up forest sacrifice. The man has barely spoken to him since the last time Rook saw him. When he lost his mind, and let the man fuck him in the goddamn dirt.

There's not a long pause, just the crackle-snap of a thumb on plastic, the quick, punched-out acknowledgement that Rook needs him.

"Where are you?" Jacob asks, as if he'll come to him, no matter the answer.

Rook stares into the forest, for so long that Jacob says his name, his first name, which sounds strange and intimate in his mouth. Rook can't remember the last time anyone used it. No one uses it. No one except his soulmate apparently.

"Where are you?" Jacob demands again.

Rook tells him.

He tears more pieces off of his shirt, packs them in tight to the messy, tearing bite. The whole area stings like it's burning, feels torn and wet in a way that's probably going to be hell when the adrenaline wears off. If he's still here when that happens. His body feels too heavy and too light at the same time.

The next time he opens his eyes Jacob is crouched over him, large body curved forward, one hand gripping hard over Rook's good shoulder, over the curling script that started all of this, the other is easing the cloth away from the wound. He doesn't make any expression at all when he sees the disaster Rook has made of himself. Though he carefully presses the cloth back into place and then frowns.

The hand from his shoulder slides up into his hair, and Rook doesn't have it in him to object. Not when it feels like the only stability he's felt for weeks.

"I won," he points out, he feels like that's important.

Jacob's expression doesn't seem to agree with his assessment. Either that or they have different definitions of winning. But he doesn't call him an idiot. Which seems like progress. It seems almost kind. He wonders if Jacob remembers how to be kind. 

Rook thinks he's probably lost too much blood.

"I thought you'd be funny," Rook admits, and he's still strangely sad about that. He's always liked being around funny people. He'd hoped that the world would give him someone that would make him laugh. But Jacob is about as grim as they come. 

Jacob frowns at him for a second, as if he's not sure what he means. Until he gets it, grunts something that suggests he thinks being funny is not a useful personality trait.

"I thought you'd be older," Jacob says simply. "And less difficult."

Rook frowns, then laughs until it hurts too much to keep doing it.

"Really, you thought the universe would give you someone who wouldn't be difficult?"

Jacob lays hands on him, finding where to grip, where to hold, and Rook lets him, curls an arm around Jacob's shoulders as the other man carefully hauls him upright. It hurts, it makes dizziness roll in him, makes him hold on tighter. Jacob wraps an arm around his waist, and makes him walk through sheer force of will. Which is probably helpful because Rook's too big to carry, and he's pretty sure he's in no condition to be slung over his shoulder.

He's leaving tacky handprints over Jacob's shirt. But there's nowhere else to hang on to, and Jacob is warm and solid. Rook needs that right now, just needs - he just needs a minute, and then he'll stop dying.

Rook always thought his soulmate would see the person he was trying to be, over the messy parts that he always got wrong. They'd tell him when he wanted things too much, when he pushed too hard, when he couldn't stop pushing, ignored how much life was bruising him. That they'd love him hard enough to make him want to be better.

He thought they'd be calm, patient, all the things that he wasn't. But that's no way to find someone to love you, to hope for all the things that you aren't. Because maybe that's the mistake people make, they expect too much from their soulmate, expect them to be everything they've ever wanted all at once, everything that they've never been. Expect them to fill in all the parts of themself that they didn't like, all the parts that weren't perfect, the parts that hurt them.

When really your soulmate is just a person like you, a little bit broken, a little bit messy, hoping for that same stability from you. Maybe no one ever feels content with the person they get. Maybe it's supposed to be hard? Maybe it's supposed to hurt to prove that it's worth it.

Rook sways sideways and there's a firm, scratchy weight against the side of his face, rolling skin, press of warmth. Jacob. Too strong to let him fall.

"We never get what we think we want," Jacob murmurs. "We get what we need. Even when we don't know that we need it."

Rook laughs, laughs again when Jacob tightens his grip. Because Rook now has a man who's already been carved into something jagged and damaged, all sharp edges and brutality. He's never going to tell Rook to stop, he's never going to be the calm every time Rook feels like a storm. He'll just keep pushing and pushing, and Rook will push back and it will go on until it kills one of them.

Before Hope County, before this fucking disaster - before he knew about any of this. At some nowhere barbecue of a friend. If Rook had bumped into Jacob, all too wide smiles and hard-worn intensity. Rook might have thought about it. He might have let him touch him, without having to set a world on fire first, without it hurting so much. Maybe that's what the universe had meant, like Sharky said, maybe that's the version of them that were supposed to be together, supposed to feel like they fit, like they could work. In some place somewhere else. 

Rook's drawn to a halt, so Jacob can get the truck door open, coax him up and inside on increasingly wobbly legs. The seat is too high, leaves him too upright, dizzy with it until he leans back. He's left in the quiet shell of it while Jacob moves round the other side and joins him.

"I didn't know," Rook says tiredly. Trying to put his thoughts in some sort of order, to explain in case this doesn't end well for him. In case this ends here for him. "I thought -"

"What?" Jacob asks him. Rook notices there's a streaked half-handprint on the side of his face, spattered through his beard, though he doesn't remember touching him. Jacob's shoving keys and boots where they all need to go without looking.

"I thought it was supposed to be different," he says faintly. "I thought you would be different."

"Different how?" Jacob demands, and Rook knows he's just trying to keep him talking.

"I don't want to kill you," Rook says thickly. "They say it's like ripping part of yourself out. That it goes on forever and never stops. And that just becomes something that you did every fucking day, and you can never forget. I don't want to be the sort of person who can do that."

There's a hand on his wrist, curling round, checking the skip and catch of his pulse. Jacob has large hands, warm on his own cold skin.

"I'm tired of this," Rook says thinly. "Even when I make everything right, it doesn't feel like winning. The world just keeps taking things from me."

The rolling motion of the truck is too easy to catch hold of, sink under.

 

~

 

Rook has vague memories of someone stabbing him in the neck, of someone else murmuring nonsense and holding him down, making him stop fighting. But that feels like a long way away, and a long time ago.

Now he's lying down in a room with shitty lighting, feeling like he fell from a great height. He doesn't feel angry any more, there's a strange quiet in his head, like everything has been wrapped up and packed away when he wasn't looking. 

Everything except his neck, the long curve of his shoulder, the edge of his jaw. Where sensation is coming back in a series of aggressive unwanted spikes of pain. Rook wants to touch it, lifts a hand that weighs far too much to try, but there's gauze there. He's right about how much it would hurt later. He can feel the leading edge of it, where his neck is going to be cramped in protective agony. He doesn't think he's been given anything for the pain. He doesn't think Jacob let anyone drug him. Not again.

"Nice set of scars you're going to have." 

Rook flinches, finds Jacob in a chair across the room, half in shadow. He's leant back, posture unnaturally straight, like someone caught him in the middle of posing for an old-fashioned photograph. 

"Ugh," Rook tells him, in answer. Because now they really are a matched set. "Someone stitched me up?"

"It wasn't me," Jacob reassures him, as if he thinks that's the thing Rook will be most angry about. "I could have done it, but I don't think you would have appreciated the stitching. It is a skill I have competency in, at best." 

Rook makes an unhappy noise, and pulls himself slowly and awkwardly to a seated position. Jacob neither moves to help him or tries to stop him. Even if his eyebrows do have opinions on Rook's good sense. Rook thinks that Jacob's eyebrows are going to judge him a lot.

They're right as well, being upright is shitty. He regrets it immediately.

"I thought you'd make me pay for my bad decisions," Rook admits. 

"Why bother when you're just going to make more," Jacob decides, he's not frowning though, as if he's accepted the fact that Rook is stubborn and contrary and prone to exploding.

Rook actually laughs at that. Because it's true. 

The chair across the room creaks loudly when Jacob leans forward, elbows on his knees.

"This isn't a war," Jacob says, and for the first time Rook can hear how tired he is. "I don't want this to be a war. But you didn't leave."

Rook frowns. "What are you talking about?" Because he'd never had a choice, leaving had never been an option, Jacob had told him, over and over.

_Told him he couldn't leave, and then left the perimeter unguarded every time._

Jacob looks angry now, like he thinks Rook is playing with him.

"You could have just left, you could have gone to John, or Faith. That would have made your choice clear, that would have made your rejection clean. I would have accepted that. I wouldn't have liked it, it would have been...difficult, but I would have accepted it eventually. I would never have forced you to -"

Jacob's jaw works.

"Instead you set my base on fire, you challenged me, you challenged my whole territory to a fight you were determined to win. You kept coming back, you kept pushing. What did you expect me to do? How did you expect me to react. You fucking dared me to catch you."

Rook blinks at him. Because he hadn't, he'd just wanted to - he'd wanted someone to _help_ him. He'd wanted someone to tell him how to fix everything. To tell him no one could have stopped this from happening, that everything that's happened was inevitable. To tell him what he's supposed to do now.

He'd been angry at Jacob for just being more of the problem instead of a solution. He hadn't been challenging him, he hadn't been baiting him. He'd just wanted - he'd wanted something he couldn't _break_.

Unstoppable force. Immovable object.

It makes a stupid sort of sense. Too much sense, he doesn't like what it says about him. What it says about the both of them.

He levers himself to the edge of the bed, feels the movement vibrate sickly through him. And this time Jacob does tense, caught from stepping forward, trying to stop him. From this angle Rook has a better look at the room, it's strangely empty, but it feels lived in, worn, the space strangely tense.

He thinks it might be Jacob's, and Rook has to wonder if anyone else has ever been allowed in here.

"You put me in your bed?" Rook says. His voice is more surprised than he feels, as if he's still catching up.

Jacob grunts something that seems to find the answer awkward. 

Which would be a yes. 

"I suppose you don't need it, everyone knows you don't need sleep."

Jacob huffs something that might be amusement, it sounds awkward, rusty. 

Rook settles his feet on the floor, someone took his boots, and his socks are dirty, which seems like a weird thing to notice. He levers himself upright, and it's just as horrible as he expects, the room is too hot, tilty - and Rook is smart enough to know he's not getting out of it today, not under his own power.

"Shit." 

He wavers on his feet, is surprised to find the warm curl of a hand round his arm. He looks up, finds Jacob right in front of him, too fast and too quiet for a man his age.

"You shouldn't go anywhere yet," Jacob says simply. It's not an order but it's clear how much he wants to it to be, how much he wants to keep Rook here by force and how hard he's fighting not to.

"Yeah, I've just figured that out." He doesn't sit down again though, even when Jacob's hands tighten as if to help him, as if to settle him somewhere stable. Rook gets the impression Jacob does a lot of pushing, a lot of guiding, maneuvering. He doesn't seem to know what to do when the touching has no purpose, when he just wants to lay his hands on someone.

One of them works its way to slope of Rook's neck, the clean side, strangely sensitive under the sweep of Jacob's thumb. Rook shouldn't allow it. But irritation is the only thing he can dredge up, at how easily Jacob touches him now, like Rook gave him permission without noticing, without meaning to. He doesn't know how to take it back. 

It feels like a long time since he's let anyone touch him. It probably shouldn't be Jacob.

"Don't," he says. And he means it about so many things.

But Jacob just grunts and kisses him. It's brief, like he fully expects Rook to hurt him for it, but when he doesn't, when he doesn't try and stop him, Jacob's hand curves into a hold.

"Why won't you stop," Rook asks, but Jacob kisses him again, his mouth a crush of heat and pressure, harder this time, like he can't stop, like this is the only thing he thinks Rook will take from him.

Jacob kisses him like he doesn't care how wrong this is, as if he just wants to touch him, to lean into him, take what the world has told him belongs to him.

"Why won't you fucking stop," Rook says thickly. Because he knows, he knows that feeling, but they're going to break everything

Jacob holds his head steady with rough hands, thumb on the unbroken edge of his jaw, pulling his mouth open so he can drive in, taste him.

"I can't do this." Rook says, dragged out and soft between kisses, wondering why he isn't _making_ him stop. Why he has his own hand against the rough back of Jacob's head, a flex away from pulling him in. Jacob reacts to that, kisses him harder, like Rook has asked him for it. It hurts his neck, and he doesn't know how to stop wanting this. He should never have let Jacob bury himself inside him. Because he thinks it made both of them want, smeared over the anger with need, like everything after that was inevitable. Made them both wonder what else they could do together. God, they're going to bruise each other until the world ends.

Eventually Jacob pushes too hard against his jaw, and Rook gives a low, gutted noise of pain that makes Jacob pull away.

"Fuck," Rook says simply.

Jacob just holds him for a long moment, and Rook watches the long, rough column of his throat swallow and swallow, watches his jaw clench and relax. As if he doesn't know what to say, doesn't know how to make Rook stay, doesn't want to leave this strange moment where Rook is letting Jacob touch him.

"Joseph has helped angrier people than you find their purpose," Jacob says eventually, like he knows from experience. 

Rook had thought he had a purpose - but the entire county is on fire. He hadn't realised until now how much of it was because of him.

"No offence, Jacob. But I'm pretty sure your brother's crazy."

"Whatever you think of my brother, Joseph sees a lot of things other people don't," Jacob says, rather than admit to any of Joseph's faults. But he doesn't seem angry. Jacob probably knows damn well how crazy Joseph is, he just trusts him anyway, loves him through everything with the sort of loyalty Rook doesn't know what to do with. "Talk to him, he won't make you stay. I won't make you stay. Just do this, just stay long enough to talk to him." Jacob doesn't sound comfortable with requests, they come out harsh, words trying hard not to sound demanding. 

"And he'll tell me what my purpose is?" Somehow Rook doubts that, seeing the purpose he gave to Jacob, John and Faith.

Jacob settles his forehead against Rook's, like that's the only awkward, intimate gesture he understands. But he wants to share it anyway. He's stiff until Rook sighs and relaxes into it. 

"If you want to listen. If you want to know why we're doing all of this."

Rook knows why they're doing all of this, Joseph thinks the world is ending. The whole cult thinks the world is ending. Rook has no idea whether Jacob truly believes that or not. Or whether his madness is more honest in its potential.

"I'm not joining his weird religion," Rook says. "Not even if he was the one the universe stuck me with." Which is a vaguely terrifying thought. "He's not going to make me a believer, and I know how he feels about that."

Jacob sighs, like he understands how complicated this is, and he doesn't know what to say to that, how to explain. It's the most lost Rook has ever seen him. If Jacob ever had a plan for this Rook destroyed it utterly.

"He'll make you understand, even if he doesn't make you believe. Just, stay with me," Jacob says slowly, and it sounds flat instead of desperate, but only because Jacob wants it to. "Until you can take care of yourself out there. Give me a chance to show you who I am."

"I haven't seen who you are already?" Rook asks quietly. But he already knows, he already knows he's going to say yes. Because he's gone too far to walk away. 

"Don't you want to know who we are when we're together? The choices we would make together?"

Rook breathes laughter, which draws Jacob down again, the softness of it. He's not sure the county will survive a combination of their bad choices. But he owes it to the county to see if they can make good choices. To go inside Eden's Gate, and see if there's anything salvageable there, any way he can save whatever's left of them, from imploding with their own madness and taking Hope County with them.

Either that, or the world really will end, and if Rook's lucky, he can save as many people as he can. 

"I'm going to need a room," Rook tells him. Because he's still angry underneath the pain and the shaky numbness, but he wants now as well, in all the ways he shouldn't. He feels bruised enough for one day, he can make poor choices tomorrow, he can end up in Jacob's bed and hate himself for it tomorrow.

"I'll have one assigned to you," Jacob says, voice quiet with a strange sort of relief. It sounds bewildered, as if Jacob doesn't know what to do now that's he's won the fight. As if he doesn't know what happens now. "If you can manage not to set anything on fire." His fingers drag down Rook's bare wrist, and Rook doesn't shake him off.

He offers a very careful laugh instead.

"No promises."


End file.
